List of events in core

System events

boot, system
First event triggered. Triggered before plugins have been loaded.
plugins_boot, system
Triggered just after the plugins are loaded. Rarely used. init, system is used instead.
init, system
Plugins tend to use this event for initialization (extending views, registering callbacks, etc.)
ready, system
Triggered after the init, system event. All plugins are fully loaded and the engine is ready to serve pages.
pagesetup, system (deprecated in 2.3)
Called just before the first content is produced. Is triggered by elgg_view(). Use the menu or page shell hooks instead.
shutdown, system
Triggered after the page has been sent to the user. Expensive operations could be done here and not make the user wait.

Note

Depending upon your server configuration the PHP output might not be shown until after the process is completed. This means that any long-running processes will still delay the page load.

Note

This event is prefered above using register_shutdown_function as you may not have access to all the Elgg services (eg. database) in the shutdown function but you will in the event.

regenerate_site_secret:before, system
Return false to cancel regenerating the site secret. You should also provide a message to the user.
regenerate_site_secret:after, system
Triggered after the site secret has been regenerated.
log, systemlog
Called for all triggered events. Used internally by system_log_default_logger() to populate the system_log table.
upgrade, system
Triggered after a system upgrade has finished. All upgrade scripts have run, but the caches are not cleared.
upgrade, upgrade
A single upgrade script finished executing. Handlers are passed a stdClass object with the properties
  • from - The version of Elgg upgrading from.
  • to - The version just upgraded to.
activate, plugin
Return false to prevent activation of the plugin.
deactivate, plugin
Return false to prevent deactivation of the plugin.
init:cookie, <name>
Return false to override setting a cookie.
cache:flush, system
Reset internal and external caches, by default including system_cache, simplecache, and memcache. One might use it to reset others such as APC, OPCache, or WinCache.
send:before, http_response
Triggered before an HTTP response is sent. Handlers will receive an instance of SymfonyComponentHttpFoundationResponse that is to be sent to the requester. Handlers can terminate the event and prevent the response from being sent by returning false.
send:after, http_response
Triggered after an HTTP response is sent. Handlers will receive an instance of SymfonyComponentHttpFoundationResponse that was sent to the requester.

User events

login:before, user
Triggered during login. Returning false prevents the user from logging
login:after, user
Triggered after the user logs in.
logout:before, user
Triggered during logout. Returning false should prevent the user from logging out.
logout:after, user
Triggered after the user logouts.
validate, user
When a user registers, the user’s account is disabled. This event is triggered to allow a plugin to determine how the user should be validated (for example, through an email with a validation link).
profileupdate, user
User has changed profile
profileiconupdate, user
User has changed profile icon
ban, user
Triggered before a user is banned. Return false to prevent.
unban, user
Triggered before a user is unbanned. Return false to prevent.
make_admin, user
Triggered before a user is promoted to an admin. Return false to prevent.
remove_admin, user
Triggered before a user is demoted from an admin. Return false to prevent.

Relationship events

create, relationship
Triggered after a relationship has been created. Returning false deletes the relationship that was just created.

Note

This event was broken in Elgg 1.9 - 1.12.3, returning false would not delete the relationship. This is working as of 1.12.4

delete, relationship
Triggered before a relationship is deleted. Return false to prevent it from being deleted.
join, group
Triggered after the user $params['user'] has joined the group $params['group'].
leave, group
Triggered before the user $params['user'] has left the group $params['group'].

Entity events

create, <entity type>
Triggered for user, group, object, and site entities after creation. Return false to delete entity.
update, <entity type>
Triggered before an update for the user, group, object, and site entities. Return false to prevent update. The entity method getOriginalAttributes() can be used to identify which attributes have changed since the entity was last saved.
update:after, <entity type>
Triggered after an update for the user, group, object, and site entities. The entity method getOriginalAttributes() can be used to identify which attributes have changed since the entity was last saved.
delete, <entity type>
Triggered before entity deletion. Return false to prevent deletion.
disable, <entity type>
Triggered before the entity is disabled. Return false to prevent disabling.
disable:after, <entity type>
Triggered after the entity is disabled.
enable, <entity type>
Return false to prevent enabling.
enable:after, <entity type>
Triggered after the entity is enabled.

Metadata events

create, metadata
Called after the metadata has been created. Return false to delete the metadata that was just created.
update, metadata
Called after the metadata has been updated. Return false to delete the metadata.
delete, metadata
Called before metadata is deleted. Return false to prevent deletion.
enable, metadata
Called when enabling metadata. Return false to prevent enabling.
disable, metadata
Called when disabling metadata. Return false to prevent disabling.

Annotation events

annotate, <entity type>
Called before the annotation has been created. Return false to prevent annotation of this entity.
create, annotation
Called after the annotation has been created. Return false to delete the annotation.
update, annotation
Called after the annotation has been updated. Return false to delete the annotation.
delete, annotation
Called before annotation is deleted. Return false to prevent deletion.
enable, annotation
Called when enabling annotations. Return false to prevent enabling.
disable, annotations
Called when disabling annotations. Return false to prevent disabling.

River events

created, river

Called after a river item is created.

Note

Use the plugin hook creating, river to cancel creation (or alter options).

delete:before, river
Triggered before a river item is deleted. Returning false cancels the deletion.
delete:after, river
Triggered after a river item was deleted.

File events

upload:after, file
Called after an uploaded file has been written to filestore. Receives an instance of ElggFile the uploaded file was written to. The ElggFile may or may not be an entity with a GUID.

Notes

Because of bugs in the Elgg core, some events may be thrown more than once on the same action. For example, update, object is thrown twice.